Let me play out a scenario for you: Let’s say you’re telling a story to a bunch of friends. It’s sweet and funny, and those listening to the tale are really charmed by it. Then, after you’re done telling your story, one of your friends absentmindedly raises his head from the cell phone he was puttering around with and asks if you can tell the story again. So you sigh and mutter to yourself about why we bother inviting this guy anywhere, and you tell the story again, but it’s just not the same. You’re just going through the motions the second time.

Now, I don’t presume to know what writer-director Ken Scott was feeling while revamping his modest French-Canadian hit "Starbuck" from just a year ago for American audiences (though that’s exactly what I’m going to do). Based on the evidence on screen, the drab and lifeless wannabe heart-warmer "Delivery Man," I’d guess he felt a little like that opening situation I described: running through the motions and losing the heart, charm and freshness of the original in the process. Without those elements, you’re just left with a damp pile of mush.

Vince Vaughn stars as David Wozniak, an affable slacker working as a delivery man for his dad’s family-based butcher shop. A quietly warm Andrzej Blumenfeld plays his dad; Simon Delaney and "SNL" vet Bobby Moynihan play his brothers. David means well, but he rarely ever does well. He collects parking tickets like a fiend, loses the shop’s basketball jerseys, owes money to some vaguely discussed gangsters and forgets about his tired girlfriend (Cobie Smulders). He can’t even grow a proper weed garden.

Despite all of his lazy shortcomings, David would love to give being a father a shot, much to the baffled confusion of his equally dopey lawyer/best friend/frustrated family man Brett (Chris Pratt, one of the film’s lone comedic highlights). It seems the gods of comedic contrivance were listening, as David soon discovers that thanks to a mix-up at the local sperm bank – and some overzealous donation habits in his youth – he’s the biological father of 533 children, many of whom are suing to find out his identity.

While Brett starts prepping the legal defense (his preferred tactic: an insanity plea), David starts discretely dropping himself into the various lives of his adult children. One’s a wannabe actor; another is a sharpshooter for the New York Knicks. Even though it puts his potentially embarrassing secret at risk, he feels a paternal instinct to act as his kids’ protector. It even starts training him to be a better man for his girlfriend, who’s pregnant herself (because after 533 kids, what’s one more) and needs some convincing of David’s dad-worthiness.

Back when I first saw "Starbuck" last year as the opening night film of the Milwaukee Film Festival, I noted that the casting of the typically fast-talking smug guy Vaughn in the lead was a decision doomed for failure. After all, one of the best attributes of the original was its star Patrick Huard. Practically unknown in the States, Huard brought a charming, sincere touch and some balance to the script’s wild swings of rude comedy and tear-jerking, borderline dark drama.

While he’s not the disaster I feared him to be, Vaughn still isn’t right for the role. The role demands an easy, likeable charm to carry the loose story, and while he’s clearly trying to turn up the nice guy charisma, Vaughn just isn’t that persona. It comes off a bit insincere, and though I’m certainly sick of his well-worn fast-talking schtick, as it turns out, his nice guy routine isn’t much more interesting.

While Vaughn was a problem visible from a mile away, what was once thought to be a benefit – bringing Scott along for the adaptation – ends up being its biggest faux pas. Despite being a movie about creating a small town’s worth of life, there’s no life to "Delivery Man."

Other than Pratt, the comedy is weak on every level. The writing is bland and stiff. It feels like almost every joke gets rung through the Rule of Three no matter the quality, and what little bite or edge the original had (despite the crass-sounding plot, it’s all feel good and almost no gross out) has seemingly been toned down, which is a bit like sanding down the edges of a marshmallow. The cast's delivery fails to bring much pop to the humor, and the editing makes each joke and punchline feel a beat slow.

The movie’s better at being sweet than being funny, but it’s hard for a movie to effectively tug at the heartstrings when its own heart clearly isn’t in it. So subtract the warm humor and drama of "Starbuck," and you’re pretty much only left with its flaws. The tone still shifts wildly, with comedy bumping awkwardly against darker, more sensitive material – one child is a young drug addict; another is disabled – and the loose story is still easy-going to a fault. And, much like her counterpart in the original, the film abandons Smulders’ character for large chunks of time.

I know there’s no more cliché thing for a pompous film critic to do than say the original French version of a movie is better … but in this case, it’s true. "Starbuck" felt like it was made out of love. "Delivery Man" feels like it was made out of contractual obligation.

The former is currently on Netflix Instant. Watch that version instead. This sleepy redo feels like the Thanksgiving tryptophan kicked in a week early.